10 Pro Wrestlers Who Would Have Made Intriguing MMA Fighters

Crossover Potential

Before mixed martial arts came along, pro wrestling offered many of
its fans a similar appeal to what today’s MMA provides. While some
pro wrestling territories like Mike LeBell’s WWA, Salvador
Lutteroth’s EMLL, now CMLL, and Vince McMahon Jr.’s WWF, now WWE,
often offered a more colorful and cartoonish approach to the worked
sport, other promotions like Bill Watts’ Mid South, Sam Muchnick’s
St. Louis Wrestling Club and Antonio Inoki’s New Japan Pro
Wrestling tended towards a more serious feel where tough men with
an air of legitimacy battled it out for supremacy.

In those days, a frequent question among pro wrestling fans was who
would win in a real fight between the champions of different
territories. That is a question that has faded in relevance as pro
wrestling has gotten less believable, but it maintains a lot of its
intrigue when it comes to pro wrestlers who built their careers on
their tough reputations. It would have been exciting to see how
some of those pro wrestling greats would have fared in legitimate
competition. Some of them surely would have flopped, shattering
their reputations like Nobuhiko
Takada did in the early days of
Pride Fighting Championships. However, others likely would have
thrived, proving their legitimate ability like Brock
Lesnar did in capturing the
Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight crown.

For this feature, we will explore some of the pro wrestlers who
would have been the most interesting to see compete in MMA. Let us
get this out of the way early: If you wanted to pick the pro
wrestlers who had the best shot of thriving in MMA, your best bet
would be to simply pick the best amateur wrestlers of the lot.
Amateur wrestling has proven over the long haul to be one of the
best bases, if not the best base, for a young mixed martial artist.
Pro wrestling has long attracted excellent amateur wrestlers, from
Dick Hutton and Verne Gagne to Chris Taylor and Earl McCready. Many
of those wrestlers would have gotten into MMA if it existed in
their day, and many would have thrived like Johny
Hendricks, Ben Askren
and Chris
Weidman do today.

While the best amateur wrestling greats may have been the surest
bets to thrive in MMA among the pro wrestling ranks, they would not
necessarily generate the most excitement, nor have the most upside
after their initial transition into the sport. Thus, this list
includes a mix of pro wrestlers with backgrounds suited to MMA,
along with pro wrestlers possessing intriguing physical traits and
personas that would have made them fun prospects to watch following
extended proper training inside an MMA cage or ring: